The Breathing Is
by JanuaryWonder
Summary: My take on how things could have evolved in Season 5 after Sam and Dean's talk about whether Sam should go through with saying Yes to Lucifer.. Bits and pieces of Dean's coping and angsty stuff..


Needless to say, I own absolutely nothing. :)

_When we were little, you used to sleep with your light on. Not because you were scared that monsters from inside cupboards may eat you, but because you feared they might go after me. I had you to turn to whenever I needed help, and you were alone. There is nothing I wouldn't give to be your big brother now, in return. There is nothing I wouldn't give to be able to stay. But I'm so tired of looking into cupboards – too tired of running and hiding and always going away but never arriving. So I need to leave, just this once, to stop leaving. I need to perserve the little in me I have left of myself by letting myself go. I'm tired of being looked after. Maybe now you'll be able to live your life for yourself a bit. I hope so. I really do. It's better this way for both of us, Dean. You'll come to see it some day. I know you will. And when you realize why I did what I did, you'll see that it makes us brothers for real, it's the only way I know how to be a brother to you now. Take care of yourself, Dean. Take care of yourself – that's the one thing left you can do to take care of me. And don't worry. Through Heaven and Hell, we were always family. Always friends. This will never change._

_Sam._

Dean clutched the piece of paper in his hand and battled the urge to tear it apart. Sam was finally gone – he had lost the his brother. And even though the letter was soft-spoken, it was like his brother to try to sugar-coat things which should simply be said out loud. _Said_ – not written down and left on somebody's pillow while they were out on a job. Not even giving Dean the chance to try to change his mind, even if he knew there was no other way. Hell. Dean knew what it was like. And now Sam would too, and Dean would be right there with him. Back to Hell, back to their destiny. Maybe Heaven wasn't the place where they had a world all their own, where they could be together, after all. Maybe Hell was really where they were headed toward all this time.

The paper was already moist with the sweat on his palm, it somehow got softer and the ink started spilling over his brother's careful dots and curves. He put it on the nightstand and turned away from it. One, two, three. Dean lunged back, smashed the lamp on the opposite wall, where his fist followed making a hole, and then he took the paper with his bloodied hand and threw it in the bin. A second later, he retreived it and put it in his pocket where it would be until he got a chance to, maybe one day, shove it into Sam's face.

_You moron. Don't you think I was covering my ass, too? The reason I took care of you like I did was because I didn't know which would be worse – losing you or losing my life. Knowing how it feels when you are gone now, I wish I could tell you I was right in doing what I did. This is worse. You've killed me, Sam._

_You'll miss it when it's gone. You'll miss it when it's gone. You'll miss him when he's gone. _

_You'll miss Dean when you're gone. You'll miss him holding your hand when you say the final Yes, you'll miss him when you take the plunge._

_You'll even miss him in Hell._

_Dean... I'm so, so sorry. It's always been me who was in the wrong, I was the reason for all your pain. I need to do something brave for things to be better, for you. I need to learn to be your brother, to be the hero. It doesn't come as naturally to me. _

The thing he would regret the most is not saying goodbye. The way he left – with a letter on a pillow, and a half day head start in a direction unknown even to him. It was all he could do to stop from changing his mind. He could never look Dean in the eyes and tell him he was going through with it. Even though it made him a coward, he couldn't look his brother in the eyes and break his heart. Not knowing was a comfort in this case. Not seeing.

_But Hell, how I wish I could see him._

One thing Dean can imagine saying – _Hello_. And then, there's no talking. There's tears and a firm embrace – there's quiet, at last. He hates these scenes which play out in his head while he's trying to fall asleep, desperately – only _trying_ to sleep, because he hasn't really slept at all, not _really_, not since Sam fell into that Pit and the world had gotten back to normal. _Normal_.

At night, he imagined hearing him breathe. Only slightly out of reach, two arms' length. Peaceful. The way it is supposed to be. And then he would open his eyes and see Lisa cradled in his arms, and it was all he could do to stop crying. He never understood why her breathing sounded so distant.

A year, and then two. Perhaps even three, but who could tell? Normal life's a bitch, sometimes. There are no demons in which to measure the time passing. No jobs, no road trips. All you get is a procession of sleepless nights and drawn out days. Dean couldn't decide which was worse. In the day, people looked at him – saw him – and he was expected to smile, to work, to _live_. And sometimes, he did. Sometimes, the pain would blend into saccharine apathy and the voices from Hell fell silent. But in the night always came the breathing. The hush of the past. The silence in which there was always, unfailingly, Sam and the goddamn whizz in his throat. As much as Dean hated to admit it even to himself, then, he liked the nights much better because of that simple truth. In the night, Sam was always there.

Another year, another silent surrender. On the way to work in the morning, as he was crossing the street, he heard a loud ringing noise coming from his right. The whoosh of air followed. Speed. Dean smiled for a milisecond before the bus hit. Of all the monsters in the world, he never thought it would be a monster _truck_ to get him. Just goes to show that destiny knows a thing or two about comedy, as opposed to tragedy, as well.

He'd been here before, with his brother. He'd been here before, and he knew what it meant except there would be no angel, no God, to send him back down now. He was no warrior anymore, and he doubted the Heavens had much need for a construction worker on Earth. But Dean didn't worry anymore, didn't fight. There was no reason for him to be who he was down there anymore. This was almost a gift. He went walking down the road. It was going to be a long journey, and an even longer eternity, without a companion.

And as soon as the thought reached his mind, he sensed he was no longer alone. There was someone casting a tall shadow over him. Dean dared not hope, but whispered his name anyway. Or maybe he simply thought about it, he wasn't sure. Things were so strange in Heaven.

_Sam?_

He heard a quiet smile – if smiles can even be heard. _Heaven_. The familiarity behind it. The love. Dean turned to see the intruder, and sure as he was standing on the forsaken road of his not-life, so was his brother – smiling worriedly, but seeming genuinely happy for the first time since Dean could recall. He hadn't realized how long it had been. _Too long_.

„Sam... How?"

No brother made a move. It seemed the cost of finding out this was all some kind of illusion was much higher than playing along with it, if it was.

„I guess you can't have a Heaven without me, Dean. And I guess Heaven beats Hell nowadays."

Dean clutched his younger brother's jacket. It was there – real. But then, this was fairy land, wasn't it? Anything you wanted? Could this all be some dream of his?

„I thought I'd died. I thought you'd died, too. We were... You left, and said yes, and I couldn't stop it, and I couldn't find a way to bring you back, and then you... Every night I heard you..."

There was so much he had prepared to say for the time when he finally met Sam again, but he never thought it would be like this. In Heaven, _really_? But Sam seemed more up to the occasion. I guess being in the Pit with two archangels for God knows how long clears up your thoughts so as to keep only what is really important.

„Do you know what always means? Didn't I tell you? My God, I thought at least that was clear, I thought at least you knew _that_. It didn't mean until you die. We were never married, I never swore my love for you to anyone but the Dark, because I thought that was the only place where it belonged. But I was so far off. See, I didn't need to swear. I didn't need to say it out loud for it to be true. I was always going to come for you, always. That's what it meant. It meant I would _always_ be here, even if here was Hell or Heaven itself."

„So, you're really here? You? And you're not going anywhere?"

Sam smiled. He pulled Dean into a firm embrace.

„Soulmates, remember? We're a two-for-one deal, you and I."

Dean crumbled in his arms. So many years, so much pain, and it was all coming out now. Sam held on. The time in the Pit had made him strong. He was finally the brother he wanted to be for Dean. When they pulled back, they were no longer on the road. Instead, the interior of a badly decorated motel room materialized out of nowhere, with them in the middle of it. They both laughed.

„Sam... do people ever sleep in Heaven?"

The question was tentative, almost fragile. Sam looked at his brother quizzicaly.

„I suppose they do whatever they want to. Why? Are you tired?"

Dean threw himself onto one of the beds and nodded.

„Yeah, I think I'd like a nap now. Dying and all that, you know. Kinda takes the energy out of a man."

His younger brother followed suit. They lay down in silence for a while, and then Sam fell asleep. Dean could hear him from where he was lying, two arms' length from the other bed. Heaven was so beautifully quiet, and so was Dean's mind. Nothing to be heard for miles and miles. Nothing to be heard in all of space and all of eternity. Nothing, that is, apart from the breathing.


End file.
